‘They might. They very nearly tipped right over once, when I tried jumping up and down on the top bunk.’
‘Yes, well, surprise surprise – of course they’d tip then. No wonder they’re so rickety, with you leaping about like a monkey.’
‘I wish I had a monkey. Hey, Mighty Mart could turn into Mighty Monkey in the jungle and grow a beautiful long tail and swing from branch to branch.’
‘Yes, and you could grow one of those rude red monkey bottoms too,’ said Melissa, sniggering.
‘You shut up. Yes, Mighty Mart is deep in the jungle and she’s thrusting her way through the undergrowth. It’s boiling hot and the mosquitoes are nipping her, but she doesn’t flinch. She strides onwards in her Converse boots, but then she hears something!’
‘What?’
‘Ssh, she’s listening! She hears this rustle-rustle-rustle. Something’s gliding towards her, nearer and nearer. The jungle birds stop their squawking, the animals all hide, because something is coming!’
‘What?’
‘It’s a massive boa constrictor – an evil creature that can kill you with one clasp. Even Mighty Mart is powerless if he chooses to strike.’
As I spoke, I uncoiled Basil and very slowly hung him down from my top bunk.
‘Yes, the boa constrictor strikes terror in everyone’s hearts. Watch out – he’s coming, he’s coming!’
I leaned right over and shook Basil so that he brushed Melissa’s face. She screamed and shot out of bed, shaking her arms and legs, fighting thin air.
‘Watch out, he’s going to get little Baba now,’ I said, choking with laughter.
‘No he’s not!’ said Melissa, clutching her shabby old doll.
‘Melissa!’ Mum came rushing into our bedroom. ‘What’s happened? What’s the matter? Why are you out of bed?’
‘She’s fine, Mum. We were just playing,’ I said, pulling Basil back into my bunk.
‘Well, don’t play! It’s time to go to sleep. And don’t either of you scream like that. You sounded really frightened,’ said Mum.
‘Melissa was really frightened,’ I said triumphantly as Mum went back to her sewing.
‘No I wasn’t,’ said Melissa sullenly, getting back into bed with Baba.
‘Yes you were! Scared stiff of Basil, even though you say he’s just a manky bundle of old tights. Oh, you nearly got her, didn’t you, Basil my boy. Watch out, Melissa. He’ll wait until you’re fast asleep – and then he’ll come slithering down again.’
‘And I’ll rip him to shreds – I’m warning you,’ said Melissa. ‘Now shut up, Marty. Go to sleep.’
‘I’m not the slightest bit sleepy. It feels so weird being in this room. It smells.’
‘It does not!’
‘Yes, it does – it smells of your horrible hand cream.’
‘That’s a lovely smell.’
‘It truly pongs. It’s making me cough – listen!’ I coughed loudly. I made Wilma and Basil and Jumper and Polly and Half-Percy and all six horses cough too.
‘This is a madhouse,’ said Melissa, burrowing right under her duvet.
‘No, it’s a jungle, and all the animals are sick and coughing with deadly rose pollutant. They’re all keeling over and dying – listen.’ I made every single creature flop onto their back, gasping.
‘I’m not listening,’ Melissa said, from deep under her duvet.
I made up a glorious adventure about Mighty Mart striding into the jungle with a big mask over her face. She sprayed all the rose pollutant until it evaporated into pink clouds that floated away. Melissa clearly wasn’t listening, because she started snoring.
I giggled at first, hearing my prim, fussy sister making such silly snorty-pig sounds, but after a while it started to get annoying. I wanted to get to sleep, but how could I when there was this piglet in the bunk below?
‘Melissa!’ I leaned right down from my top bunk and gave her a prod. ‘Melissa, wake up!’
‘What?’ Melissa mumbled.
‘You’re snoring!’
‘No I’m not!’
‘Well you’re not right this second because I’ve just woken you up.’
‘So shut up. I don’t snore anyway,’ said Melissa.
She burrowed down in her bunk bed. In less than a minute she was snoring again, even louder this time.
I pulled my own duvet right over my head, and curled up with my animals and whispered Mighty Mart stories to them. I didn’t get to sleep for ages – but it helped me come up with a cunning plan to get my own back on Katie and Ingrid.
I got up very early the next morning, as soon as I heard Mum go into the bathroom. I whizzed downstairs into the kitchen. I opened up the fridge and peered inside.
I was momentarily distracted by the leftover trifle on the bottom shelf. My finger reached out all by itself and started scraping up the cream, and a cherry or two, and it scooped a peach slice out of the sponge – but then I managed to get it under control again. I left the trifle alone and reached for an egg box. I shook it gently to make sure it was full, and then sneaked it back upstairs, carrying it under my pyjama top just in case I bumped into Mum or Dad.
Melissa was still sound asleep on the bottom bunk, so I wrapped the egg box carefully in two old T-shirts for protection and put it in my school bag. There! Mission accomplished!
I was a little unnerved at breakfast when Mum was unusually nice.
‘How did you get on sharing, girls?’ she asked, giving us both a hug. ‘Did you go to sleep quickly after all that squeaking and squealing?’
‘One of us did,’ I said, spooning cornflakes into my mouth. ‘The one of us who snores like a pig.’
‘I don’t!’ said Melissa indignantly.
‘Of course you don’t,’ said Dad. ‘No one in this family snores. We just breathe deeply, don’t we?’
That made me giggle and choke on my cornflakes, because Dad snores terribly. He doesn’t sound like a piglet, he sounds more like a great snorty warthog.
‘Careful with those cornflakes, Martina,’ said Mum. She spread her hands, waggling her fingers about. ‘I sewed the last cushion last night, and finished the poppy costume. And one of the Year Five mums emailed. Her oldest daughter’s getting married and she wants me to tackle her wedding dress and three bridesmaid’s dresses too.’
‘But you’re already doing another lot of bridesmaid’s dresses, aren’t you? You can’t take on too much, love. Your hands are playing up as it is,’ said Dad.
‘No, I’m fine. They don’t need these dresses for months yet. And guess what! One of the dancing-school mums wants a blue dress just like Martina’s for her daughter.’ She patted my curls. ‘You were a brilliant little model for me, sweetheart.’
‘A rhapsody in blue,’ said Dad.
‘Bluebottle, more like,’ said Melissa.
I felt myself flushing. Were all the Year Sixes calling me Bluebottle too? They didn’t even know me.
‘How did you know?’ I hissed.
‘I heard that Katie and Ingrid calling after you,’ Melissa whispered. She paused. ‘Do you want me and my friends to sort them out for you?’
‘No thanks. I’ll sort them out, don’t worry,’ I said.
‘What are you two whispering about?’ said Mum.
‘Just … secrets,’ I said.
‘There! I knew sharing a room would bring you closer together,’ Mum said happily. She looked at her watch. ‘We’re quite early for once. You were very good to get up without being called, Martina. There’s just about time for me to cook you a proper breakfast if you’d like. What about bacon and eggs?’
Eggs!
‘No thanks,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m full of cornflakes.’
‘No thanks, Mum,’ said Melissa, luckily. ‘Fried breakfasts are sooo fattening.’
‘No thanks, Jan. I’m going out for an hour or two, leafleting the neighbourhood,’ said Dad.
He’d designed a little advert for his travel services on the computer and was eager to spread the w
ord about. And I was eager to spread my eggs about. I sat all through morning lessons fingering the box in my school bag. I waited for lunch time, when they’d have maximum impact. Then I went strolling out into the playground, where all the girls were starting up a new rounders game. Katie had made herself captain. Ingrid and Alisha and everyone else wanted to be on her team.
‘I’ll be captain of the other team,’ I said.
‘No you won’t. You’re not even playing,’ said Katie. ‘No one wants to play with you, Bluebottle.’
‘Yeah, push off, Bluebottle,’ said Ingrid.
‘You’re rubbish, Bluebottle,’ said Alisha.
Several other girls started up a Bluebottle chant. Some of the boys started peering in our direction, distracted from their own game. I didn’t care if the whole playground was watching. I smiled and swung my school bag purposefully.
‘What are you grinning at, Bluebottle?’ asked Katie.
‘Do you know what bluebottles are?’ I said.
‘Of course I do,’ said Katie. ‘They’re you!’
‘You haven’t a clue what a real bluebottle is, have you?’
‘It’s an insect,’ said Ingrid. ‘A horrible creepy-crawly insect.’
‘Yeah, like you,’ said Alisha.
‘I’m not the creepy-crawly one, grubbing and grovelling to Katie. That’s you two. If I’m a bluebottle, that means I’m a blowfly.’
‘So? Blowflies are horrible,’ said Ingrid.
‘They’re not horrible, they’re just little insects, but the stuff they lay their eggs in is ever so horrible – rotting meat, dung and dead things and wounds. That’s what you lot are – rotting and smelly and dead and all-over pus. So I’m going to lay my eggs in you.’ I reached into my school bag, got out the egg box, opening it up in a trice, and started throwing them.
I have a terrific aim. I got Katie right on the head, so the egg went all over her long hair. I got Ingrid on the nose, splat all down her face. And I got Alisha right in the middle of her big fat tummy, so the egg slid off her skirt and dripped all the way down her legs. I still had three more eggs, but Katie started running towards the girls’ toilets, blubbing like a baby. Ingrid ran after her, jabbering, ‘We’re telling! We’re telling!’ And Alisha ran too, having to hop and skip because her skirt was so soggy.
Everyone else stood stock-still, staring at me, mouths open.
‘Anyone else want to call me Bluebottle?’ I said.
There were no takers at all. They just gazed at me in awe, as if I had turned into Mighty Mart.
‘Wow!’ said Micky West, walking over with all his boy gang around him. ‘That showed them!’
‘You can’t half throw good, Marty!’ said Simon Mason.
‘Their faces!’ said Jeremy Wymark.
They started laughing, and most of the other boys joined in. The girls still looked a bit stunned.
‘You’ll be for it now, Marty,’ Mandy Heart said anxiously.
‘Look – they’ve told Mr Hubbard!’ said Julie Brown.
I looked where she was pointing. Yes, there was Mr Hubbard himself, our headteacher, red in the face, marching purposefully towards me. And he wasn’t alone. He had our school secretary with him. Mrs Michaels. My mum.
If I really was Mighty Mart I’d give a cheery wave to everyone and leap into the air, flying up into the sky now that I’d sorted out the bullies. But I wasn’t Mighty Mart. I was me – and I stayed rooted to the spot.
I was in trouble. Big-time. I was frog-marched into school and given a severe lecture in Mr Hubbard’s room while Mum cleaned up Katie and Ingrid and Alisha, who were all in tears.
‘I can’t believe you could behave so badly, Martina,’ said Mr Hubbard. ‘Throwing eggs is not only an unpleasant, hostile, stupid thing to do, it’s also dangerous. You could have really hurt Katie or Ingrid or Alisha.’
I’d wanted to hurt them, but I had enough sense not to say that out loud.
‘It was an entirely unprovoked attack by all accounts,’ said Mr Hubbard. ‘What possessed you to do such a thing? And why were you carrying six raw eggs around in your school bag?’
I wondered about telling him the Bluebottle tale, but knew he wouldn’t understand. So I just stood there, staring at his desk, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, while he droned on and on. It wasn’t really dreadful at all, just boring. But I knew this was simply the lull before the storm. The storm was Mum.
When the bell rang for afternoon school, Mr Hubbard waved me away. I galloped smartly down the corridor, but Mum shot out of her office, charged after me, and had her hands clamped on my shoulders before I could escape.
She gave me a little shake. ‘Just wait till I get you home!’ she hissed.
It was very strange doing lessons that afternoon. I had very hard sums and then a spelling test, usually my two worst things, but I wanted each lesson to go on for ever. Our teacher, Mrs Madley, had been told all about the Egg Incident and felt it necessary to give me another little lecture in front of the whole class – though her lips kept quivering, almost as if she were about to burst out laughing. Perhaps it was the sight of Katie and Ingrid and Alisha. Mum had done her best, but they still looked very eggy, especially Katie. It looked as if she hadn’t washed her hair for weeks. They all glared at me, naturally, but they didn’t try to poke me in the back, and though they whispered to each other, they didn’t say the dreaded word Bluebottle, not once.
The other kids were still staring at me warily, clearly wondering what I was going to do next. Micky West sent me a note!
My heart soared. The boys never ever let girls play on their teams. But here was Micky inviting me to play with them!
I wrote back: and added a smiley face.
I wasn’t sure I’d be in a fit state to play rounders tomorrow though. I was sure Mum was going to beat me up.
It was actually worse. She kept ominously quiet all the way home, and only got started when we were inside our front door.
‘I have never been so ashamed in all my life,’ she said. ‘Go up to your bedroom this instant, Martina. I can’t bear to look at you.’
I didn’t have my own bedroom any more. I had to languish in the pink room, marooned on my top bunk. I wrapped Wilma Whale around me and sucked my thumb. I was starving hungry. We always had fruit smoothies and biscuits when we got home from school. It was clear that I was going to have to go without. I searched my school bag for forgotten biscuits or toffees, but couldn’t find so much as a crumb or an empty wrapper.
‘I don’t care,’ I declared defiantly. ‘Mighty Mart sometimes doesn’t eat for days and days. In fact, when she’s on a particular mission to save this planet, she’s so busy she doesn’t have time to eat at all. She just gets thinner and thinner and thinner until she’s as thin as an arrow, but that’s all to the good because she shoots herself way up into the stratosphere. If any of her arch enemies get near her and fire their deadly weapons, she’s so narrow they can’t spot her in their targets and miss her completely.’
I drew Mighty Mart as one long line down my page, with just a tiny pinhead on top and two Converse boots at the bottom. I added a lot of bullets and bombs flying all around her – but they started to look like eggs. I added little stick-people Katie and Ingrid and Alisha, and pelted them all over again. I got my yellow felt pen and made them positively drip with egg. I laughed and laughed – but it was a hyena laugh, and it didn’t sound right.
‘What are you laughing at?’ said Dad, coming into the room.
‘Oh, Dad!’ I said, and I jumped down from my bunk bed and ran into his arms.
But something was wrong. He didn’t hug me back or swing me round and round. He just stood there. I peered up at him.
‘Dad?’
I dug at his tummy with my chin. He didn’t respond.
‘Curlynob?’ I said, reaching for his hand to pat my curls.
But Dad pushed me away, gently but firmly. ‘Come on now, Martina.’
‘Marty!’
&nb
sp; ‘This isn’t just one of your usual silly pranks. You’re in very serious trouble. And it’s no laughing matter,’ said Dad.
‘I wasn’t laughing. Not really,’ I said.
‘I just heard you. And what’s this?’ He seized my sketchbook and saw the bright yellow splats and scribbles all over the page. ‘For pity’s sake, you’re revelling in this! What on earth’s got into you? Mum’s in tears downstairs, she’s so upset. How could you ever do such a thing to those poor girls?’
‘They’re not poor girls, Dad. They’ve been really mean to Marty, calling her this daft name,’ said Melissa, peeping round the door.
I stared at my sister in astonishment.
‘That’s enough, Melissa. Go back downstairs,’ said Dad.
‘But it’s true, Dad. It isn’t Marty’s fault. They were all turning against her. I should have helped her, but she said she didn’t want me to,’ said Melissa. She looked really upset, as if she might start crying. Like me.
‘Melissa. Please. Go downstairs,’ said Dad.
She did as she was told.
‘Are you really, really cross with me, Dad?’ I whispered.
‘Yes I am,’ said Dad.
I tried to pull Wilma over my head, but he pulled her off me.
‘Now then, stop your cute baby tricks – I know you’re just trying to get round me,’ he said. ‘It’s time you grew up a bit. All right, I dare say you felt you had to stand up to these girls. Was it the ones you go on about – Katie and Ingrid?’
‘Yes. And Alisha.’
‘Is she the plump girl who had one of Mum’s dresses? Honestly, that poor little soul didn’t look as if she could say boo to a goose. Now, Melissa says these girls were teasing you … What names were they calling you?’
I shook my head.
‘Come on. Tell me. I need to know.’ Dad paused. ‘Was it a rude name? Look, spell it out.’